Improving by 1% or getting worse by 1% each day sounds immaterial, right? Think again. 1% better or 1% worse every day, when compounded, makes a big, big difference according to Atomic Habits by James Clear.
If you get 1% better each day for 1 year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the year is done.
1% every day for 1 year: 1.01365 = 37.78
Conversely, if you get worse 1% per day, you’ll end up with zero.
1% every day for 1 year: 0.99365 = 00.03
1% improvement everyday can transform non-winners to world record breakers. Case in point - the inspiring story of British cyclists.
Since 1908, for 110 years, the British had just won a single gold medal in Olympics and zero win for Tour de France. Then in 2003, a new coach named Brailsford was hired. His strategy was to continuously search for tiny margins of improvement. Brailsford's exact words were - “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”
What kind of 1% improvements did the team make? Here are some -
- Redesigned the bike seats to make them more comfortable
- Rubbed alcohol on the tires for a better grip
- Asked riders to wear a special kind of shorts
- Used sensors to monitor how each cyclist responded to workouts
- Tested various fabrics against the wind to determine which is lighter and more aerodynamic
- Tested massage gels to see which one resulted to fastest muscle recovery
- Hired a doctor to teach the cyclists on the best way to wash hands to minimize risk of catching a cold
- Determined the type of pillow and mattress which helped the riders sleep better
All these small improvements resulted to astounding results. How astounding?
In 2008 (5 years after), the British cyclists won 60% of the gold medals in the Olympic Games in Beijing. 😮💪 In 2012 in London, they set 9 Olympic records and 7 world records. 😮💪 (Prior to the 1% improvement strategy, I just want to remind you that they had so far only won 1 gold medal in 110 years.)
From 2007 to 2017, British cyclists also won 178 world championships and 66 Olympic or Paralympic gold medals and captured 5 Tour de France victories. 💪💪💪 (Again, prior to the 1% improvement strategy, I just want to remind you that they have never won any Tour de France.)
Incredible, right?!!! Such phenomenal results for continuously seeking out tiny improvements even in various unexpected areas.
Applied to more simple scenarios, Clear said - Imagine the body you can build if you don’t stop training; The knowledge you can build if you don’t stop learning; The fortune you can build if you don’t stop saving; The friendships you can build if you don’t stop caring.
So whatever good habits you have now, just imagine the compounded effect if you continuously seek out 1% improvement. 💪
The book "The Obstacle is the Way" by Ryan Holiday serves as a great reminder that there are a lot of external factors that could happen in our lives which are way beyond our control.
Promises aren’t kept.
You don’t always get what is rightfully yours, even if you earned it.
Not everything is as clean and straightforward as the games they play in business school.
A technique to prepare oneself to be able to deal with life's challenges is to anticipate the range of potential outcomes even before something happens. Holiday shares:
... the person who has rehearsed in their mind what could go wrong will not be caught by surprise. The person ready to be disappointed won’t be. They will have the strength to bear it. They are not as likely to get discouraged or to shirk from the task that lies before them, or make a mistake in the face of it...
It doesn’t always feel that way but constraints in life are a good thing. Especially if we can accept them and let them direct us. They push us to places and to develop skills that we’d otherwise never have pursued.
Would we rather have everything? Sure, but that isn’t up to us....
You know you’re not the only one who has to accept things you don’t necessarily like, right? It’s part of the human condition...
After you’ve distinguished between the things that are up to you and the things that aren’t, and the break comes down to something you don’t control . . . you’ve got only one option: acceptance.
But Holiday emphasizes that acceptance is not the same thing as giving up. Acceptance is making the best of external events that have come our way and allowing these events to teach us lessons we would have been reluctant to learn otherwise and to develop skills that we’d otherwise never have pursued.
Holiday's example to illustrate acceptance is an incident in Thomas Edison's life. Here are excerpts from the book:
At age sixty-seven, Thomas Edison returned home early one evening from another day at the laboratory. Shortly after dinner, a man came rushing into his house with urgent news: A fire had broken out at Edison’s research and production campus a few miles away.
"Go get your mother and all her friends", he told his son with childlike excitement. "They’ll never see a fire like this again."
"What?!"
"Don’t worry", Edison calmed him. "It’s all right. We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish."
That’s a pretty amazing reaction. But when you think about it, there really was no other response. What should Edison have done? Wept? Gotten angry? Quit and gone home? What, exactly, would that have accomplished? You know the answer now: nothing.
To do great things, we need to be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. We’ve got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad.
Of course, there was more than just a little rubbish in Edison’s buildings. Years and years of priceless records, prototypes, and research were turned to ash.
Within about three weeks, the factory was partially back up and running. Within a month, its men were working two shifts a day churning out new products the world had never seen. Despite a loss of almost $1 million dollars (more than $23 million in today’s dollars), Edison would marshal enough energy to make nearly $10 million dollars in revenue that year ($200-plus million today). He not only suffered a spectacular disaster, but he recovered and replied to it spectacularly.
This is the first time I heard about this story on Thomas Edison. Imagine, while his lab was being eaten by flames, his reaction was - "you'll never see a fire like this...", "we've just got rid of a lot of rubbish...". 😮
All of this happened when he was 67 (past the retirement age). And it happened in 1914, an era where digital and cloud-based back-ups didn't exist. There was no way to retrieve several years of research and prototypes other than to start from scratch. Edison could just have decided to give up, close shop and live a quiet life. But nope, he bounced back and did even greater things. 💪
His story is very heartbreaking but how he got through it is just extraordinary.
So who's Rubin Hurricane Carter and what is his story? He was an American boxer and at the height of his boxing career in the mid-1960s, he was wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit - triple homicide. He got convicted due to fake verdict. Prosecution had secretly promised leniency to the witnesses regarding their own crimes in exchange for their cooperation. Carter got three life sentences.
The book cites Carter's story to illustrate how he chose to react and act on the injustice that happened to him. Holiday writes:
Was he (Carter) angry about what happened? Of course. He was furious. But understanding that anger was not constructive, he refused to rage. He refused to break or grovel or despair.
Every second of his energy was to be spent on his legal case. Every waking minute was spent reading law books, philosophy, history. They hadn’t ruined his life they’d just put him somewhere he didn’t deserve to be and he did not intend to stay there. He would learn and read and make the most of the time he had on his hands. He would leave prison not only a free and innocent man, but a better and improved one.
It took nineteen years and two trials to overturn that verdict, but when Carter walked out of prison, he simply resumed his life. No civil suit to recover damages, Carter did not even request an apology from the court. Because to him, that would imply that they’d taken something of his that Carter felt he was owed. That had never been his view, even in the dark depths of solitary confinement. He had made his choice: This can’t harm me. I might not have wanted it to happen, but I decide how it will affect me. No one else has the right. We decide what we will make of each and every situation. We decide whether we’ll break or whether we’ll resist. We decide whether we’ll assent or reject. No one can force us to give up or to believe something that is untrue (such as, that a situation is absolutely hopeless or impossible to improve). Our perceptions are the thing that we’re in complete control of. They can throw us in jail, label us, deprive us of our possessions, but they’ll never control our thoughts, our beliefs, our reactions. Which is to say, we are never completely powerless...
Even in prison, deprived of nearly everything, some freedoms remain. Your mind remains your own (if you’re lucky, you have books) and you have time lots of time...
It's almost unthinkable how one could survive and keep one's sanity for being punished for 22 years for something you're not guilty of. And Carter's choice not to file a civil suit or request for an apology from the court (when he was released) is just unbelievable. I like how Carter put it - This can’t harm me. I might not have wanted it to happen, but I decide how it will affect me. No one else has the right.
If Carter had another alias, I think it should have been unbreakable.
Anyway, let me end this post with a beautiful quote I found online which Carter said in 2014 - two months before he passed away:
“If I find a heaven after this life, I’ll be quite surprised. In my own years on this planet, though, I lived in hell for the first 49 years, and have been in heaven for the past 28 years.
“To live in a world where truth matters and justice, however late, really happens, that world would be heaven enough for us all.”
While I was reading up on Emma Morano last week who lived up to 117 years old, I came across articles about Jeanne Calment who is recognized as the person who lived the longest human life span. How long did she live? 122 years and 164 days, outliving her daughter and grandson. 😲😲 She was born in 1875 and passed away in 1997.
But unlike Morano who had some challenges in family life and had to work in a factory to fend for herself, Calment's life was a privileged one. Her dad was a shipbuilder and her mom came from a family of millers, both from Arles, France. Yes, the same Arles where Vincent Van Gogh spent considerable time. Calment even remembered meeting Van Gogh when she was a teenager in her uncle's shop where Van Gogh bought canvas.
After getting her diploma at 16, Calment did several activities like painting and piano lessons while awaiting marriage. At age 21, she got married to a second cousin who was a wealthy shop owner. Her husband's wealth allowed her not to work for life. She kept herself busy by pursuing hobbies such as fencing, cycling, tennis, swimming, rollerskating, watching operas and playing the piano.
Her husband passed away when Calment was 67 years old. Both of them ate dessert with preserved cherries which were treated with copper sulfate. Her husband developed jaundice and died from the poisoning after one and a half months. Calment, having eaten fewer cherries, fortunately survived. Her daughter died of pneumonia and her grandson died from an automobile accident.
At age 90 with no heirs, she struck a deal with a lawyer, age 47, to sell her apartment. The deal was that the buyer would pay her a monthly fee until she died and upon which, the apartment's ownership would be transferred to the buyer. Since you're dealing with a 90-year old seller, one would think it's such a bargain, right? Except that Calment lived up to age 122. She even outlived the buyer who passed away at age 77. The buyer's heirs had to continue to pay the monthly dues to Calment. At the end of Calment's life, the total payments made to her for 32 years were more than double her apartment's value. 😱
Calment lived alone from age 88 (after her grandson died) and only moved to a nursing home at age 110. And guess what? She rode the bicycle until the age of 100! 😲
Here were some of Calment's recorded daily rituals between at age 111 to 114:
She started her day at 6:45am with a long prayer by her window thanking God for being alive and for the beautiful day that was about to start. Sometimes, she would loudly ask the reason for her longevity and why she was the only one alive in her family.
While seated on her armchair, she did some flexing exercises.
Her breakfast consisted of coffee with milk, and rusks (dry, hard biscuit or twice-baked bread).
She washed herself unassisted. She applied olive oil on her skin and powder.
She washed her own cutlery before going to lunch. She liked braised beef and she wasn't too keen on boiled fish. She made herself a daily fruit salad using banana slices and squeezed orange.
After eating, she smoked a cigarette (in her earlier years, it was a cigar) and drank a small amount of Port Wine.
In the afternoon, she took a nap for 2 hours in her armchair and when she woke up, she would go around the nursing home to share what news she heard from the radio.
At night, she would have dinner and return to her room to listen to music, smoked a last cigarette and went to bed at 10pm.
Like Morano, there are so many surprising things about Calment's lifestyle which don't follow the conventional healthy habits. The most glaring ones are -
She loved chocolates - she consumed 2 pounds of chocolates a week! In one article I read, it states that she only stopped eating chocolates at age 119!
She started smoking cigars at age 21 (influenced by the husband) and she only quit smoking at age 117!
A public health researcher who co-authored Calment's biography thinks that Calment's secret to longevity is her immunity to stress. Calment once said - If you can't do anything about it, don't worry about it. Another article I read concluded "Thought over lifestyle". 😂😂 But I leave it up to you to draw your own takeaways from Calment's life.
I was going through some of the articles I've bookmarked and one of them is a story published earlier this year about the world's oldest person passing away at age 117.
Emma Morano when she celebrated her 117th bday (Source)
Emma Morano, an Italian, is the last surviving person from the 19th century having been born in 1899. That's the same year when Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmitted the first radio signal. And that was 4 years before the Wright Brothers successfully flew the first airplane.
Just imagine what she has witnessed throughout her lifetime - not just the 2 World Wars but also in terms of the progress in infrastructure, technology, ways of doing things, people's values and behavior, among many other things. 😮
When I was in high school, personal computers were still super expensive and I remember we first learned how to type using a typewriter.
Just thinking about the evolution of typewriter to a personal computer, floppy diskette to cloud-based storage, rotary phone to smartphone, walkman to Spotify (and all formats in between) - are all mind-blowing to me.
Evolution of storage devices - from floppy diskette to CD to SD card to
USB and today, cloud-based storage (Source)
Evolution of the telephone - from rotary phones to cellphones and today, smartphones. (Source)
Evolution of music players - from Walkman to mp3 players to ipods and
today, online music streaming like Spotify (Source)
What more for Morano whose lifetime spanned 3 centuries?!
Having enjoyed a long life one might easily conclude that Morano's life might have been easy but nope, she had a very challenging life. As she shared in past interviews, she was forced to marry a man she didn't love (who threatened to kill her if she didn't marry him), gave birth to a child who died at 6 months' old and separated from his husband coz he was abusive.
What about her occupation? She was a factory worker until age 65 then from there, she worked in a kitchen of a boarding school until age 75. That leaves her with 42 more years post-retirement! 😮 😮😮 There's nothing much written about what her daily routine was like after retirement. But I am curious to know what activities kept Morano's life busy for those 42 years of active life.
Morano was a devout Catholic and wore the rosary on her neck up until her latter years when she was prevented from wearing them for fear that it would choke her while she was asleep.
She also had a penchant for clocks. She had a collection in her home and she also loved to give them as gifts. This is very interesting - to some people, clocks may cause stress. Like me, I don't like to keep a clock in my bedroom coz the ticking sound at night makes me feel more pressured when I couldn't sleep. Haha... 😂
When asked what Morano's secret to a long life is in 2013 (when she was 114 years old), she said she ate 3 eggs a day, drank a glass of homemade grappa (grape-based brandy), enjoyed chocolate sometimes, and above all, she thought positively about the future.
In 2016 when she turned 117 years old, she was again asked the same question. This time, Morano credited her long life to her diet of raw eggs (reduced then from 3 to 2 eggs) and cookies, and staying single (or the lack of a husband). And yep, she lived alone. She cooked for herself until age 112 and lived alone in her home up until she was 115 years old! 😮😮😮
But wait, there's more revelation. In the few times, she became ill, she refused to be sent to the hospital. Also, according to her doctor, Morano has never eaten much fruit or vegetables. 😮😮😮 Her characteristic, her doctor said, is that Morano always ate the same thing, every day, every week, every month and every year. Wow!
Morano didn't take a conventional healthy balanced diet but there she was - she lived until the age of 117. I don't know what lesson to take away from here but it seems like if you want to live long, eat whatever makes you happy as long as it's always the same food every day, keep a positive attitude and don't marry. 😂😂😂 But honestly, I don't think I want to live that long. 😂 Besides, how can you save up and prepare for 42 years of retirement life? 😂 Imagine, her post-retirement life is equivalent to the mid-life of an average individual! 😬 😊
When I was a kid, I never learned how to swim. The only thing I learned on my own was how to float on my back. Take note, it's just floating on my back, not backstroke. Wahaha...
The reason? I'm scared of deep water. When I was a kid, I was scared that my floater would suddenly get punctured while in a deep pool. Now as an adult, even when I am wearing a life vest in open water, I am scared that a strap might suddenly snap out. Wahaha...
But I love water and I like going to the beach. So about 3 years ago, I added "learn how to swim" to my bucket list but as usual, I never got around doing it.
Two months ago, I caught up with some ex-colleagues and for whatever reason, we talked about swimming. We decided to meet up one Saturday so they can teach me. I couldn't control my arms and feet, I drank a lot of water from the pool (wahaha...) and water kept entering my ears. But that attempt got me going so I googled for swim coaches and swimming lessons for adults nearby.
Three weeks ago, I finally decided to enroll in a swimming class for adults. During the first session, here's the conversation with my 2 classmates:
Me: Why did you enroll?
Classmate 1: I want to be more efficient with my strokes so I don't get easily tired in triathlons.
Me: <Gulp! He's a triathlete!>
Classmate 2: I want to improve my form and just like him, my goal is not to tire easily.
Me: <Cringe! They both know how to swim! Uh-oh...>
2 Classmates: How about you?
Me: Survival. I just want to learn how to swim. Wahaha...
We had twice a week sessions. The coach would give us drills which we had to repeat until we got the correct movements, then the drill progresses.
In between our classes, I practiced on my own. After class, my classmates and I also stayed behind to further practice.
On our 4th session, I was able to swim freestyle for 12.5 meters straight. Why 12.5 meters? That's the middle of the pool - the exact spot before the pool's depth becomes 6 ft, then 8 ft! Haha... When I achieved that feat, even the lifeguard and the attendants cheered and clapped (because sometimes I would chat with them and they knew I started from zero skill). Haha...
The weekend after my 4th session, I kept on practicing on my own and was able to successfully swim across a 25-meter lap pool - not just once but 4 successful attempts. Yay! But that pool is shallow so I was relaxed and there was no fear of deep water.
On our 6th session, my coach said it was time for me to try to swim across the 25meter pool - but as I mentioned earlier, the pool we use for class was half-shallow and half-deep - up to 8 ft deep! Waaa....
My coach asked me to start from the deep end so that if I don't make the entire stretch, hopefully, I'll reach the shallow part. But I was so scared that I held on tightly to a pole for the next 10 minutes and tried to negotiate with my coach to postpone it until the next session. I am sure I looked stupid in the pool. Wahaha...
See, even if I knew my coach was there to save me if I drown and even if I knew there was a lifeguard on stand by, I was still so scared. I couldn't detach myself from the wall! The thought of deep water - in this case, 8ft. - paralyzed me.
Another coach suggested that I try to stand at the bottom of the pool to get a feel at how deep the water is (while still holding on to the pole!). I did that twice and it helped because when you reach the bottom, you do get pushed up to the surface. So I thought - even if I fail and sink, I would get pushed up to the surface and maybe, when i reach the surface, I could hold on to the wall for safety. So with that, I was ready to overcome my fear and I finally let go of the wall.
And guess what? I made it across the full 25 meters. Yay!
It's amazing how I made progress in just 3 weeks. But there's still so much to learn like improving my form, strokes and breathing. And for the record, I am still scared of deep water! But at least, I've already started with baby steps.
Just some tips if you also plan to learn how to swim:
1. It's ideal to enroll in a class or get a coach because they have a technique of teaching progressive drills and before you know it, you're able to swim already. I've read a lot of reviews online and this is how most people describe the experience - regardless of the swim school or coach.
2. You need to practice in between classes because swimming requires muscle memory.
3. It helps to watch video tutorials. One of my ex-colleagues shared that he learned the butterfly stroke just by following a Youtube video tutorial! Wow... In my case, I downloaded the complete set of "Total Immersion's Perpetual Motion Freestyle" (USD19.95 from the TI website) since Total Immersion (TI) is the technique used by my coach. I would watch the short videos every now and then so hopefully the movements get imprinted on my mind.
4. After the session, if you feel there's water in your ear, just tilt your head sideways - the affected ear should be parallel to the ground. If the water does not come out, you can create vacuum by placing your palm flat against the ear, then pressing against it for a few seconds.
5. After swimming, you'll feel super hungry! The first time I spent 2 hours in the pool, I ordered a pizza and pasta! Wahaha.... Just drink water first after swimming because you're actually thirsty. Ok, you're really hungry too (but not as hungry as you think) after quenching your thirst.
6. Just have fun! Instead of being embarrassed that I don't know how to swim, I proudly shared with everyone that I had zero skill so they'll have high tolerance if I look stupid in the pool. Haha...
So if you also don't know how to swim and you've always wished you knew how, stop wishing. Just do it!:) Google for a swim coach or swimming lessons for adults in your area.
It's never too late to learn something new. In fact, I came across one video of a man who learned how to swim TI-style at age 93! :)
For some Holy Week reflection, I read the "Seven Last Words" by Fr. James Martin, SJ. It's a very quick read - only 126 pages - but very impactful. The content is based on Fr Martin's homilies at the St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York on Good Friday 2015.
What struck me most is the reflection on forgiveness ("Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.")
Usually, when people hurt us, what nudges us to forgive are the following:
if the person apologizes/says sorry
if he/she seems sincere and remorseful
And the period of granting forgiveness usually depends on the degree of the offense - the more serious it is, the harder and longer one is able to forgive.
In Fr. Martin's book, he cited two amazing and mind-blowing stories of forgiveness.
One is that of a father whose 16-year old son was killed in a car accident because his son's friend, Kenny, was driving the car while he was drunk. During Kenny's trial, this father pleaded to the judge to give Kenny the minimum sentence possible because he said that Kenny never wanted to kill his son. Wow.
When the father was asked why he did what he did, he said "I just did what I thought was right". He also said that he saw Kenny as more than just that one terrible act.
To top it off, both the father and Kenny kept in touch since then, writing to each other for the last 20 years. Imagine, the father didn't just forgive but was able to develop a special friendship with the person who had caused his son's death! Wow.
The second story is about a lawyer named Jeanne whose sister, her sister's husband and their unborn child were killed by someone who was remorseless and never admitted his guilt. Compared to the first story, the death of the victims in this second story was not accidental, but intentional. And to make it worse, there was no remorse from the killer. How can one possibly forgive, right?
Anyway, Jeanne was in mass one day and was so moved when Lamb of God was said, specifically by the words - "You take away the sins of the world". She thought that these words surely don't mean that if someone wrongs us, we should freeze that sin that no matter what the person does, whether he/she repents or not, we should punish the person for the sin forever. So on that day, Jeanne decided to forgive the killer of her sister and family. (Fr Martin also shares what Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, the author of Dead Man Walking, often says about inmates on death row - "People are more than the worst thing they've ever done in their lives.")
Years later, Jeanne realized that she had never told the killer yet that she had forgiven him so she decided to write him a letter. In response, the killer wrote her a letter too. You know what he said? He wrote back - "You're right, I am guilty of killing your sister ... and her husband ... I also want to take this opportunity to express my deepest condolences and apologize to you."
That story gave me goosebumps!
Forgiveness had freed him to be honest and remorseful, Fr Martin points out.
Fr Martin said that forgiveness can free both parties. For the forgiver, it frees him/her from the prison of resentment and from seeing the other as less than human. And for the offending party, he said that we may not know how exactly forgiveness will free him/her and it may be in a way that we will never see, but it will free the other person in some way (like how it has freed Jeanne's killer).
Beautiful stories of extraordinary forgiving capabilities over acts most of us would consider as unforgiveable.
Of course the greatest act of unfathomable forgiveness is that of Jesus on the cross. As Fr Martin points out, if there is anyone who had the right not to forgive, to lash out in anger and feel unjustly persecuted, it was Jesus. Yet, even if the Roman soldiers didn't express remorse in front of Him and continued to mock him, He forgave and prayed for them with His words - "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."
Most of us would probably have thought bubbles like beautiful stories but I'm not a superhuman like Jeanne or the father of Kenny's friend (let's not even go to the level of Jesus' forgiveness! Haha...).
So for starters, I was thinking at the least, what we can try to do is when someone offends us, we don't have to wait for the person to say sorry and show remorse before we forgive.
Fr Martin said that wanting is a good start. He also said that one of the teachings of St. Ignitius of Loyola is even if you don't have the desire to forgive, but have a desire for the desire, God can work with that. Whew! And hopefully, we progress from there. :)
The thought of colonizing a planet used to be pure fantasy… just a theme for sci-fi movies and comic books. But guess what? There’s a real person who’s stated life purpose is to turn humans into space colonizers. Elon Musk. One of the richest men the world with a net worth of USD12B as of September 2015 based on Forbes.
With the innovations Musk's companies have produced, Musk is the closest to a real-life Tony Stark. He has revolutionized the aerospace, automotive and solar industries like no one had since the Wright Brothers.
Reading "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future" by Ashlee Vance gave me peek into Musk's life story.
So who is Musk? What is his life story?
He’s the man behind SpaceX, a company that builds affordable rockets in the US. Why did he focus on affordability? Simply put, his analogy was why build a Ferrari for every launch when it was was possible that a Honda Accord might do the trick?
SpaceX sends a rocket up about once a month, carrying satellites for companies and nations and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). Its USD60 million per launch cost is much less than Europe’s, Japan’s, even Russians' and the Chinese. (One player for example charges USD380 million per flight.)
In November 2012, just a few months after it started shipping, the Model S was named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year out-beating eleven other vehicles from companies such as Porsche, BMW, Lexus, and Subaru in terms of raw speed, mileage, handling, and storage space. And it could be recharged for free at Tesla’s stations located in highways across the US.
Tesla had transformed the car into a gadget—a device that actually got better after you bought it. While owners sleep, Tesla’s engineers tap into the car via internet connection and download software updates. How cool is that?!
Several months later, Consumer Reports gave the Model S its highest car rating in history—99 out of 100—while proclaiming that it was likely the best car ever built. The Model S was not just the best electric car; it was best car, period, and the car people desired.
America had not seen a successful car company since Chrysler emerged in 1925. One year after the Model S went on sale, Tesla had posted a profit, hit $562 million in quarterly revenue, raised its sales forecast, and become as valuable as Mazda Motor.
In October 2014, Musk unveiled a supercharged version of the Model S with two motors—one in the front and one in the back. It could go zero to 60 in 3.2 seconds. The company had turned a sedan into a supercar.
Musk isn’t technically the original founder of Tesla but he just bought into the company in the early stages (incorporated in 2003, the original founders were Eberhard and Tarpenning and they named it Tesla Motors after Nikola Tesla, the inventor and electric motor pioneer). But as what people say, without Musk’s money, marketing savvy, engineering ingenuity, and leadership, the innovation may not have unfolded the way as it did.
When Musk accomplished these 2 feats - SpaceX and Tesla - analysts started comparing him to Steve Jobs who had successfully claimed similar achievements in two different industries (a new Apple product hit + a blockbuster Pixar movie in the same year). In Musk’s case, there was even a third feat - SolarCity - started in 2006, it is now the largest installer and financier of solar panels for consumers and businesses. In 2014, SolarCity was valued at close to $7 billion. Whoa...
And do you know what made Musk get into solar energy? It just made sense to him since enough solar energy hits the Earth’s surface in about an hour to equal a year’s worth of worldwide energy consumption from all sources put together.
Brilliant mind. It makes one curious how his mind is wired. And why ordinary mortals like us don’t have thoughts like that. Hahaha….
Anyway, before telling you how his mind wired, some may remember Musk in his early tech successes. In 1995, he had a company called Zip2 (described as a primitive Google Maps combined with Yelp) which Compaq ended buying in 1999 for USD307M (where Musk got USD22M).
His next startup was a payment solution called X.com but he ended up buying another payment startup called Paypal to consolidate with X.com (again, he wasn’t the original founder of PayPal; he just bought into it). eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for USD1.5B and being the biggest shareholder, Musk got a lot and that’s what he used to initially fund SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity. But it wasn’t an easy ride as most of his companies took several years to perfect the inventions and start making money.
So what makes Musk special? What was his growing up years like that made him what he is today?
Musk was born in South Africa in 1971 (his grandparents and parents were born in Canada but they moved to South Africa).
When he was a kid, his parents thought he was deaf because when people spoke to him, he seemed to be in trance and had a distant look in his eyes. But according to Musk, in those trance-like moments, he was able to concentrate on a single task ... he could see images in his mind’s eye with a clarity like an engineering drawing produced by computer software. Wow....
Musk also loved to read. After school, he would go to the bookstore and stay there from 2pm to 6pm to read. When he ran out of books to read at the library (around 3rd or 4th grade), he started to read Encyclopedia Britannica. And since he had a photographic memory, he remembered a lot of facts. At the dinner table, when one of his siblings would wonder aloud about the distance from Earth to the Moon, Musk would say the exact measurement at perigee and apogee. (I can’t even remember these terms! Wahaha…)
Musk was 10 when he saw a computer for the first time in a mall and got awed, and soon got his own computer. At 12, he designed a video game about alien space fighters he called Blastar and which was featured on a trade publication in South Africa.
(Side note: His gift on being able to study something new and put all the details together is very much still there. When SpaceX was just starting, Musk and team went to Russia to buy a rocket but the sellers wouldn’t budge in to the price he wants. He told his team that they could just build their own rocket and presented a document detailing the costs of the materials needed to build, assemble, and launch a rocket! Wow...)
Growing in South Africa, Musk was exposed to apartheid. He was bullied too - very badly. He mentioned in the book that he even got a nose job when he was an adult to repair the damage bullying did to his face.
His classmates in South Africa remember Musk as likable and quiet but not considered as one of the smartest. But the reason for this was Musk didn’t have interest in subjects that didn’t make sense to him where he was ok with just getting a passing grade. But for subjects like like physics and computers which he found important and useful, he got high grades. In his own words:
There needs to be a reason for a grade. I’d rather play video games, write software, and read books than try and get an A if there’s no point in getting an A. I can remember failing subjects in like fourth and fifth grade. Then, my mother’s boyfriend told me I’d be held back if I didn’t pass. I didn’t actually know you had to pass the subjects to move to the next grade. I got the best grades in class after that.
At 17, Musk left South Africa for Canada. He spent the next year working a series of odd jobs around Canada like tending vegetables, shoveling out grain bins and cleaning the boiler room of a lumber mill.
One activity which Musk likes to do together with his brother is to read the newspaper and identify interesting people they would like to meet. They would cold-call these people to ask if they were available to have lunch. Among those that they called was a top executive at a bank. It took six months to get a sked with this bank executive but the 2 made an impression that this bank executive ended up offering Musk a summer internship at the bank and became his trusted advisor. His exposure during his internship greatly influenced him to do his tech startups (Zip2 and X.com) and the rest is history.
That is Musk's life story in less than 2,000 words. :)
So what else is in Musk’s pipeline other than turning humans into an interplanetary species?
The latest software update of Model S gives the car autopilot functions. The car has radar to detect objects and warn of possible collisions and could guide itself via GPS. “Later, you will be able to summon the car,” Musk said. “It will come to wherever you are." Wow. Tesla’s third-generation car, or the Model 3, due out in 2017, is expected to be priced at around USD35,000 - a milestone that would officially make electric cars truly mainstream. Tesla has also begun modeling a type of submarine car that could transition from road to water. Double wow. SpaceX, on the other hand, is developing reusable rockets. Instead of the conventional disposable rockets which break apart and crash into the sea, SpaceX is testing rockets that can return to Earth on a floating pad at sea or precisely land back at their original launchpad. Imagine, rockets that can be used over and over again for trips to space (just like planes!). Reusable rockets are expected to further cut prices to at least 1/10 versus its rivals. Amazing.
Musk also unveiled something he called Hyperloop – a new mode of hi-speed transportation via cars in pods inside a tube. You might wondering how fast is fast when he says hi-speed? The Hyperloop could take you from LA to SFO in 35 minutes! He explained that the pods would float on a bed of air produced by skis at their base. Each pod would be thrust forward by an electromagnetic pulse, and motors placed throughout the tube would give the pods added boosts as needed. These mechanisms could keep the pods going at 800 mph. And it's going to be solar-powered. Mind-blowing, right?!
I hope I get a chance to visit SpaceX, the Tesla factory or even the Hyperloop test site and see all the brilliant engineers of Musk working on these mind-blowing inventions. The things which Musk's companies have developed are the kind of things we used to see only in fictional movies and books. And once upon a time, a kid in South Africa read about them too. But this kid, unlike us ordinary mortals, didn't just stop at the pure enjoyment of reading about them. He was able to figure out how to make them happen. :)
While scanning through titles in a bookstore, I saw a yellow book. The top of the cover says - “From the World’s Greatest Salesman... Joe Girard’s 13 Essential Rules of Selling”. I wondered what he sold and what made him the world's greatest salesman.
I quickly scanned the book and found out that he holds the Guinness Book of World Records for having sold the most number of new retail vehicles in a 15-year career. How many? 13,001 vehicles! You know the highest no. of vehicles he sold in a year? 1,425 vehicles! In a month, it was 174. In a day, his highest was 18 vehicles but on an average day, he sold 6 vehicles. Wow!
So I ended getting a copy to know more about the world's greatest salesman.
Joe Girard was born on November 1, 1928 in Detroit, Michigan (which makes him 86 years old today). At the age of 9, he started working as a shoeshine boy. At age 11, he worked as a newspaper delivery boy. When he was in his teens, he became a school dropout, then worked in a factory to assemble stoves. At age 18, he joined the army but had an accident which injured his back so he got discharged. Then he became a contractor but got duped - he lost his business and all his savings, and was left with a USD60,000 debt from the business.
Having a hard time looking for a job and with nothing to feed his family at age 35, he pleaded with a sales manager of a Chevrolet dealership to hire him as a salesman. The manager was hesitant because Joe didn’t have any car sales experience and it was a slow month for cars that time. But guess what? On that same day, he was able to sell 1 car! On his second month, he sold 18 cars and trucks. Unfortunately, he got fired because the other salesmen complained about him - for being too aggressive. (What a loss for that dealer!) Anyway, he applied in another car dealership and the rest was history.
Joe Girard's 13 Essential Rules of Selling don’t just actually apply to Sales but to life in general. Here you go:
1. Make a healthy choice
2. Have a positive attitude
3. Organize your life
4. Work when you work
5. Observe Girard's No-No’s (Examples of these are – Don’t smoke, don’t chew a gum, don’t use heavy cologne, don’t use profanity, don’t tell dirty jokes, don’t be late, etc.)
6. Dress the part
7. Listen
8. Smile
9. Stay in touch
10. Tell the truth
11. Lock up every opportunity
12. Stand in front of everything you do for others (character and reputation)
13. Reward yourself
It was refreshing to read a business book whose author’s top rule is health-related. This particular excerpt struck me:
To get into the right frame of mind mentally and emotionally to take on life, start by taking care of yourself physically. For most of us the problem is not a condition, a disease or illness - it's neglect.
<Guilt> No more procrastinating with our health goals. “I was too busy to be healthy” is the last thing we would want to tell the doctor.
The book is peppered with Joe’s in-your-face life advice. Here are my favorites:
Nobody can guarantee where you'll wind up in this life, not even General Motors <or insert your employer here no matter how big and stable it is>. Your best shot is you.
******* If you're waiting for someone to make the world just right for you so you can succeed, you're on the road to nowhere.
******* Edmund Hillary who climbed Mt Everest 60 yrs ago (1953) didn't say: This mountain is too high. It's too cold up here. These rocks are too uncooperative. There's no trail to follow. My equipment doesn't feel right. It's all the manufacturer's fault. Mount Everest can't be conquered.
******* You will question decisions you made that you believed were carefully thought through. You will have doubts. You can't control that. It's being human. You can, however, control how you respond to those kinds of situations. The key is attitude. That's where the difference lies between winning and losing.
******* …..if you look like a bum, you are a bum. Why? Because the vast majority of people won’t take the time to find out that you’re really an intelligent, nice, hard-working person after all...
******** You can't let one (bad or unfortunate) incident rule your life. Once you stop trusting and believing in people who make a difference in your life, you might as well put your best outfit on and climb into a coffin because the end can't be far away.
********
Nobody ever said life was fair, so quit blaming the world for your shortcomings. Just be smart about making sure important commitments are in writing. Learn from your mistakes and move on. Many people can't do this. They prefer to spend their time plotting ways to get even with someone who cheated them or lied to them. When that happens, you know you've reached the bottom.
********
I also like how Joe pointed out how priceless time is –
I guard my time like it is gold. In fact, it's even worth more than gold because you can't buy a sack of time with a sack of gold.
And why we should strive to live a healthy balanced life -
Life is not about one thing. Your life is more than just your job. To live a balanced life, you must pay attention to everything's important to you.
How did he do it? He divided his life into 4 areas and when he’s doing any of the four, he doesn’t let anything get in the way. What are these 4?
1. When he works, he works.
2. When he sleeps, he sleeps.
3. When he eats, he eats.
4. When he plays, he plays.
And how about us? When we do something, we also do 2 or 3 other things! Tsk-tsk....
Lastly, I admire the way how Joe consciously made sure he stayed grounded despite all the achievements. Here are 2 of my favorite excerpts:
Remember your success is never all about you. If you're in sales, you represent a product or service backed by lots of other people without whom you'd fail.
****** People who enjoy success too quickly can often be doomed to failure if they forget what got them there and where they came from. That's why I always keep that picture of me shining shoes as a 9-year old kid on the wall in my office. I never want to forget where I came from. It kept me in line and prevented me from thinking I was a hotshot.
And just in case you’re wondering about the photo Joe is talking about, here it is –
Last week, my fellow bookworm friends and I went National Bookstore’s warehouse sale.We were able to buy books for as low as Php15! :)
One of the cheapest books I bought during the sale is Fish by Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen.It’s a Wall Street Journal’s bestseller, and years ago, I do remember seeing it in bestseller stands.I’ve no idea what the book is about but I thought – how could you go wrong with 15 bucks?!
The book is entitled “Fish” because it talks about the learnings of the world-famous Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle and how you can apply the same principles to your life - whether at work or in your personal relationships.
It is written from the perspective of an office worker named Mary Jane.She and her husband relocated to Seattle for work.Unfortunately, her husband unexpectedly passed away too soon due to aneurysm and she had to make ends meet for her family.
Mary Jane was a supervisor in a financial company and later, got promoted to lead a new team.The new team she was assigned to was a tough one as it was always the butt of jokes in their office.The department was called “toxic energy dump” and the members there were called zombies because they were so slow, inefficient, don’t get things done, don’t pick up the phone when it rings and they intentionally misplace documents.For the team members, their work in the accounting department is the most boring work because it was the same everyday.
One lunch break, Mary Jane went out for a walk and stumbled upon the action at the Pike Place Fish Market.There was so much energy in the market.Buying and selling of fish was almost like a show.
During that trip, Mary Jane met one of the fishmongers named Lonnie.Their conversation lead to the discussion of Mary Jane’s challenges in the office and Lonnie, in turn, shared with her the story on how Pike Place was transformed from a plain fish market to a world-famous one.
Here are excerpts from an insightful conversation between Mary Jane and Lonnie:
Lonnie:“Have you ever considered the fact that any work can be boring to the person who has to do it?Some dudes travel all over the world for business. It sounds pretty exciting to me, but they tell me it gets old fast.I guess given the right conditions, any job can be dull.
...There is always a choice about the way you do your work, even if there is not a choice about the work itself.That was the biggest lesson we learned in building the world-famous Pike Place Fish Market.We can choose the attitude we bring to our work. “
Mary Jane:Why wouldn’t you have a choice about the work itself?
Lonnie:Good point.You can always quit your job, and so in that sense, you have a choice about the work you do.But it might not be a smart thing to do given your responsibilities and other factors.That’s what I mean by choice.On the other hand, you always have a choice about the attitude you bring to the job.
...We can bring a moody attitude and have a depressing day.We can bring a grouchy attitude and irritate our co-workers and customers.Or we can bring a sunny, playful and cheerful attitude and have a great day.We can choose the kind of day we will have. We spent a lot of time talking about this choice, and we realized as long as we are going to be at work, we might as well have the best day we can have.
...Working in a fish market is cold, wet, smelly, sloppy, difficult work. But we have a choice about our attitude while we are doing that work.”
Lonnie also shared the other ingredients of their success – that of being playful, conscious effort to make someone else’s day and being totally present when you interact with people. Beautiful lessons.
The book is just an easy read – a little over 100 pages – you can quickly finish it in one reading. It would make a great gift to people who always complain about work or who have lost the spark in their work life.
Anyway, I haven’t been to Seattle yet but I remember watching Pike Place Fish Market's flying fish attraction in a travel show before. Someday, I hope I could visit this world-famous market and see these wonderful guys in action.
I quickly read up about the Pike Place Fish Market and learned that it was founded in 1930. In 1965, it was purchased by one of the fish market employees named John Yokoyama.
In 1986, the fish market was almost on the brink of bankruptcy. At that point, Yokoyama and his employees decided to make a change by changing their attitude. And they committed to become world-famous by introducing games and customer performances.
By 1990, just 4 years after that positive change, TV shows started featuring them. And guess what today? The Pike Place Fish Market attracts up to 10,000 daily visitors. Wow. :)
If you want to read more about the Pike Place Fish Market, you can visit their website here.
